


The Hitman

by Aard_Rinn, BaeBeyza



Series: Crime in Crystals [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Police, Fear of Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Interrogation, Massage, Meister is Jazz, Non-Sexual Bondage, prazzledazzle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24244540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aard_Rinn/pseuds/Aard_Rinn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaeBeyza/pseuds/BaeBeyza
Summary: Prowl is the last clean cop in Praxus, the final flickering light in the darkness.There are plenty of people who would like to see him snuffed.
Relationships: Jazz/Prowl
Series: Crime in Crystals [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749994
Comments: 61
Kudos: 298





	1. Cover Art

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Decepticonsensual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Pairing Meme Drabbles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003206) by [Decepticonsensual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual). 



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaaaa look at this! It's so beautiful!
> 
> I had the lovely Baebeyza on Tumblr to do some cover art for this story, and she absolutely knocked it out of the park! The next chapter is coming a little slowly, and so rather than sit on this, I'd throw it up for the like 15 people subscribed to this chapter, before doing a full A/N on it when the next chapter goes up... :D
> 
> Seriously, though, look how pretty it is! Their expressions are just perfect - I'm in love :D And Jazz looks sinister~! Aaa I love it.
> 
> You can see the full image here: https://baebeyza.tumblr.com/post/623651326681841666/baebeyza-commission-for-aardrinn-a-cover-art and you 100% should, it's gorgeous! And then, of course, I used a jaunty medley of Paint Tool Sai and actual OG MS Paint to add the text, because I am an animal :D


	2. Chapter 2

Lieutenant Prowl onlines with a groan.

His doorwings _ache._ That’s the first thing that registers, the staticky numbness spread between them, and he leaves his optics offline to avert the helmache he knows must be brewing.

It’s been a long time since he’s gotten this overcharged - too overcharged to even remember going out to the bar. His gyros are misreporting, too - they’re telling him he’s seated, upright, but that can’t be right. He tries to raise his hand, to rub at his chevron in an attempt to draw off some of the ache…

His hand doesn’t move.

_Slag._

There’s a sudden, gnawing fear in his chest, and Prowl doesn’t hesitate - he digs into his coding, triggers the combat-overrides that will have his systems purged of whatever drugs he’s been dosed with, his processor rebooted and tactical systems onlining. It hurts - it always does - but this isn’t the first time he’s been targeted by a suspect.

Primus willing, it won’t be the last.

He’s tied to a chair - cuffs at his wrists and ankles, a rope around his chest keeping him upright. His wings are still reporting only static - now, more alert, he can feel the static baffles clamped at their bases, disrupting the data they collect before it can be processed. It’s professionally done, and a relief that the doorwings themselves are undamaged, but it means that without onlining his optics, he’s almost completely blind to the room around him - all his audials are picking up is the hum of machinery and the faint hiss of steam.

His captors already know he’s conscious - they’ve already seen him attempt to move, and the combat override is anything but silent. They’re waiting for him - probably an intimidation tactic. Feldspar - target of his current investigation, most likely to have ordered his capture - is a rich mech, he can afford to hire professionals. If he’s lucky, they have orders to scare him off the case. If not…

Prowl shunts the thought to the back of his queue, and onlines his optics.

The room is big, and dark. There’s the faint orange glow of a console to his right - some kind of industrial warehouse, most likely, and even as it registers his ATS is narrowing down his location to a handful of spots within the city, chronometer synching to cut a few more that wouldn’t have been reachable in the time his captors have had him, leaving him three possible locations. Prowl shunts that to the back of his queue too - a quick check is enough to tell him his comms are offline, and even if they weren’t, there’s no mech on the police force that’s coming to find him before Feldspar’s agents are done with him.

Agents who… aren’t immediately apparent. Prowl resets his optics, cycling to low-light vision - the delays on full night-vision are crippling in a fight - but there’s no one within his line of sight, and Prowl feels his anxiety ratchet up another notch. _They’re playing with him._

Prowl isn’t in the mood to be played with.

“You couldn’t even find a smelter to interrogate me in front of?” He keeps his tone casual, voice unimpressed. He’s never been very good at patter, not like some of the other officers he trained with, but the ATS suppresses his emotions at the best of times, and at least for now, that’s an advantage. “Chrysoberyl’s men did a much better job of setting the scene when they captured me. Is Feldspar not paying you enough to do a proper job of this, or should I let him know that his assassins are being lax with their work?”

He braces for a blow. The interrogator… is most likely right behind him, taking advantage of the blind spot in his doorwings to observe him. There will be another, probably two, observing from somewhere within the room but out-of-sight, ready to take him down if he manages to escape the interrogator. If he escapes them, a sniper on the roof. His tactical meta flares with potential locations, targeting software coming online, but he’s unarmed - locating the mechs will provide limited advantage.

After several moments, there is no attack, and Prowl slowly relaxes. It’s only as he allows his attention to refocus outward that he hears the low, soft chuckle.

It’s coming from in front of him, and Prowl’s processors shudder to a halt as he registers that, struggling to reorient based on the new data. He forces his predictive programming to a halt - he needs his focus in the here-and-now no matter how much it aches - and stares through the inky darkness, optics tuned for any hint of a reflection in the black.

A shadow unsticks itself from the wall, moving fluidly towards him, and his meta isn’t enough to prevent a thrill of fear from gripping his spark. The mech moves like a professional - like a killer - and despite his words, Prowl had been hoping not to die tonight.

He circles. Each step is smooth and silent - past the edges of his vision, there’s not even a hint the mech is there until he reemerges on the other side, keeping his distance. His frame seems to absorb the light - it’s hard to get a clear outline of his frame, though the still-dark optics imply a subsurface build, one without need for sight to navigate. No doorwings (not a Praxian), so either Kaonite (too small) or… Polyhexian.

Prowl feels the fear in his spark turn into dread as his processor turns over the possibilities, running through known killers operating in Praxus, cross-referencing until there’s only one real possibility…

“Meister.”

The figure laughs. The sound is like an echo in crystal, clear and low in the darkness, but there’s nothing comforting about it. He doesn’t stop, crossing Prowl’s vision again, vanishing from sight - but this time, rather than reappearing, there’s a sudden, clawed hand at Prowl’s throat. His jerk of shock almost tosses the chair sideways, but a second hand catches it, and the sudden pain he’s expecting doesn’t come. Meister chuckles softly in his audial, but the claws at his throat only brushes gently - _mockingly_ \- across his cables.

“Very good, officer. Very, very good.”

Then it slips away, and when Meister reappears his visor is online, a blue line in the darkness, and he’s holding another chair. He sets it down in front of Prowl, close enough to reach out and touch, and sits, frame loose and relaxed. There’s not a sound as he does - even placing the chair is silent, and there’s none of the whisper of engines that usually betrays even the quietest of stealth builds.

Prowl has to say _something_. The strain of the other mech’s silence is getting to him, and he knows it, sees the trap the other mech is laying out for him where he can’t do anything but drive over it.

“I didn’t know you worked for mechs as low-ranked as Feldspar.” The dealer is rich, but by no means a sharkticon. “Or is someone protecting him?”

Meister’s mouth crooks into a smirk at that. “Digging for information, mech? You seem to know who I am - what makes you think I’m looking to give up my secrets?”

“I’m not leaving this room.” It’s been a forgone conclusion since he recognized the other mech. Meister doesn’t leave his targets alive. Witnesses, sometimes. Targets, never. “You might as well let me know who’s ordered me dead.”

That gets another chuckle. “You seem very sure I want to kill you, officer.”

“I don’t imagine you’re here to turn yourself in.” Prowl jerks one wrist, pointedly, against the shackle. The jingle of chain is loud in the cavernous room. “Who wants me dead?”

“Feldspar, I’m sure. Titanium - he’d love to off you, but you’re too visible for his liking.” The crime lord’s name makes Prowl’s optics go bright, engine catching - but Meister keeps talking. “Diamond. Cymophane. Cabochon. Camshaft. Impeller.” 

He leans back, and meet’s Prowl’s optics. “Chief Barricade, I’m sure. You’re an inconvenient mech, officer. Lots of mechs I can think of who’d like you out of the way.”

The list is enough to make Prowl’s doorwings tremble, frame slumping in resignation. Any of the mechs Meister has named are powerful enough to have him killed - the specifics of which one has ordered this hit are almost irrelevant. His own boss being named… isn’t exactly a surprise, either - just confirmation that no one from the precinct is going to be looking for him until long, long after Meister has finished his work.

The assassin is watching him, visor consideringly blank. After a moment, he rises, crossing behind Prowl - not circling, this time, brushing just outside the edge of his field. Prowl braces for whatever the mech intends to do to him, but Meister, after a moment, only lays a hand on each of his shoulders in a mockery of gentleness.

“I ain’t here for them, though.” There’s a flicker of static, and then the pull of magnets at his plating - it takes Prowl a moment to realize that Meister is _rubbing his shoulders_ , and he has the sudden, inexplicable thought that, maybe, the mech is _actually trying to calm him down_. The worst part is, it’s almost working - the magnets are bleeding tension from his frame, and it’s hard to focus on fear when the ache in his shoulders is slowly wicking away.

Meister falls silent - only his hands give any clue as to his location, which is at least better than the silent circling before. Prowl slumps against his restraints, going limp, letting the assassin do what he wants with his frame - he doesn’t speak, doesn’t dare to disrupt the other mech when Meister is so terrifyingly close. Meister doesn’t _do_ anything, however - just keeps up the gentle pressure at his shoulders, carefully, working away the tension of kinked cables and stress almost professionally.

Prowl’s ATS flags that, but he ruthlessly suppresses the alert. He doesn’t want to think about anything beyond getting out of this room alive - not least anything he might slip up and mention, giving Meister a better reason to kill him. For now, he’s safest knowing nothing about the assassin..

Finally, Meister lets out a pleased hum. His hands slide upwards, still gentle, fingers carefully rubbing at the base of Prowl’s helm for only a moment before pulling back. Prowl can’t help himself - can’t keep back a soft whimper at the loss of contact - but that doesn’t seem to bother the assassin as the mech moves back to his seat.

It takes Prowl a moment to collect himself. Whatever Meister’s intentions, he’s succeeded at disorienting him - Prowl resets his optics, buying himself whatever time he can as he scrambles to recollect his thoughts. Finally, he manages to grab onto a thread, a question he can ask -

“Then who?”

Meister lets out a vent. The sound is exaggerated, almost certainly artificial - the assassin has been utterly silent throughout their encounter - but it’s at least relatable, a noise of frustration. If that frustration is aimed at himself or Prowl, the officer is less sure.

“Would you believe me if I said it was personal, mech?” Meister’s voice is conversational, but the words cut through Prowl’s meta like a knife.

He can’t help but stiffen as his ATS registers the new input and flares to life. He needs to - he needs to run this new data - he feels his engines stutter, almost stall, he knows that Meister must be able to tell what he’s doing, but - 

He can’t keep the panic out of his field. He has no idea, _no idea_ , what he might have done to give Meister a _personal interest_ in ending his functioning, but he needs to know - 

Meister is leaning towards him, visor bright. His lips are moving, saying something, but Prowl can’t hear it; there’s too much going on, too many new potential pathways opening in his tactical suite to be examined and discarded, the data throughput overwhelming him, and suddenly Prowl knows with a sense of terrifying certainty that he’s going to crash, there’s nothing he can do to avert it, and there’s too much too much too much -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah well, I have a headache, so one (1) round of editing later, up she goes! I have... actually a lot written for this so far - 18k or so, I just have to finish some stuff and edit it. So... decent odds that I'll have it done, actually! This story is only three chapters, but I have about five planned out for this 'verse, so that's nice.
> 
> I'm giving inspo credit to Decepticonsensual for inspiring this with her Pairing Meme Drabbles, but I'm not gonna be any more specific than that because spoilers! Needless to say tho it's a fucking trove of ideas and y'all should read it!


	3. Chapter 3

Lieutenant Prowl onlines with a groan.

His helm aches. That’s the first thing that registers, the pounding heat of a tactical crash, overwhelming and all-encompassing, and he leaves his optics offline to limit the data input until he can recover.

He’s restrained - not tightly, but someone has bound him upright to a chair. There’s no damage reports in his HUD, just a long string of crash reports - someone got him pinned before he could thrash, kept him from hurting himself.

Wherever he is, it’s quiet. There’s the faint hum of machinery to his left, but it’s not enough to overwhelm him - it’s a steady hum, and not moving, so it’s easy enough to push into the background and ignore.

Someone - presumably the same person who restrained him - has gotten ahold of a set of static baffles, clamped them into place at the base of his doorwings, and Prowl sinks into the blissful relief of the near-total sensory deprivation, the soothing lack-of-data that comes from a crashed tactical suite and a silent room.

There’s no messages on his comms - he can’t have crashed in the middle of a mission, then, or he’d have at the least an instruction to reboot his ATS and bring himself back online ASAP. That means he probably has a few minutes before he needs to reset, and so he lets himself float in the quiet, relaxed in the way that only a crash can cause.

Minutes slip by, but eventually, curiosity does get to him. Something made him crash, but until the ATS comes back online, the memories are completely garbled - they hadn’t yet shifted from RAM to quartz-storage, leaving them all but inaccessible. 

He boots the suite back up slowly, giving himself a chance to reacclimate as it onlines. He’s safe, there’s no rush, so he boots each sector independently, letting it cycle up gradually -

Then suddenly, memory returns in a rush, fear flooding his systems like acid as he remembers where he is - and the ATS is only half-online. Forcing it into emergency boot only goes so far - he’s trapped, helpless, as it finishes booting, and all he can do is wait -

Finally, it finishes cycling up, and he forces his optics online, vents churning to drag heat away from his frame - 

Meister hasn’t moved.

He’s leaned back in the chair, glittering blue visor watching Prowl come online with an aura of detached interest. When Prowl meets his gaze, he cocks his head - just slightly - for a moment before leaning forwards, visor dimming.

“Are you alright, mech? That was a pit of a crash.”

Prowl gapes at him, vents finally slowing as his frame registers that no, he’s not overheating, he’s not even running hot. He tries to form a question, but his vocalizer spits static, not yet finished resetting with the rest of his frame.

Meister seems to hesitate for a moment, the gesture uncharacteristic. Then he reaches out, places a hand on Prowl’s knee - the touch is careful, grounding, as Meister shifts his chair a little closer.

“I’m sorry. Shoulda thought about how that would have sounded. I shoulda led with - I ain’t here to kill you, mech. Not gonna hurt you, either.” Meister hesitates for a moment. “Just needed a chance to talk to you ‘bout something.”

Prowl can’t keep down a hysterical laugh at that. It comes out as another burst of static.

“Can I…” Meister hesitates before standing, this time. He keeps his hands out, and low, as he moves forwards, letting Prowl track him until he’s right at the edge of his vision. This time, when he slips around behind him, he isn’t silent - he lets out a soft hum, just enough for Prowl to track, until his hands are once again on Prowl’s shoulders.

Prowl can feel him wince when he touches them, just a faint flexing of his fingertips as they meet plating. He doesn’t try to shrug off the touch, processor fixated on the assassin’s words, trying desperately to parse meaning from them, to figure out the killer’s intent - but when the magnets engage again, he slumps into them with a gasp of relief.

“Slag… that crash has you even more drawn up than before, mech. You need to relax.” Meister pauses for a moment, hands working a loose circle, before continuing. “You think you can talk, or do you need a click?”

Prowl hesitates, but the assassin doesn’t stop his gentle touch, and Prowl lets his vocalizer spit another little bit of static before resetting it. Meister doesn’t seem bothered by the delay, voice soft as he lets out a muttered, “Take your time.”

Prowl shutters his optics as his vocalizer resets, letting the darkness focus him, the slow bleeding away of the stress from his forced reboot calm him. By the time he can speak, he’s limp in the other mech’s hands. 

“What do you want from me, then?”

His rebooted tactical suite has already drawn up a sea of options. False testimony. Access to a target. Destruction of evidence. A trophy from a successful kill that was located too soon. Prowl as bait for a target, or leverage in a negotiation with a client. A case buried. 

Prowl has lived his life as an honest cop. He’s not sure he’s ready to die as one - and despite the other mech’s attempts at reassurance, he has no illusions about the consequences of crossing the assassin.

“I need you off of the Feldspar investigation.”

There it is. And the answer, when he looks for it, comes easily. 

“No.”

Something else… if it had been something smaller, he might have agreed. Prowl doesn’t want to die here, he doesn’t want to wind up another mech vanished into the darkness under Praxus, but this… it’s too much. 

None of the other thugs that have threatened him have ever kept him off a case for long. Meister… Meister will have him off this case, one way or another, but it won’t be because Prowl gave it up.

But behind him, the assassin doesn’t falter, doesn’t even seem surprised by the answer, and his touch stays gentle. 

“Not a lot of mechs left with the bearings to tell me no, these days. Plenty of them’d tell you you were glitched, talking to me like that.” Meister doesn’t sound angry, though. “Look, officer, we want the same thing, here. You wanna walk out of here, and I want you alive. I got a bit of business with Feldspar, and I need him outside of prison for it.”

He pauses, running a hand up Prowl’s neck to let his thumb circle at the base of his helm, and Prowl can’t keep down a whimper as his helmache begins to settle.

“Listen. Give me two orn. Take a vacation or - I don’t know, request a transfer, get yourself hurt so’s they bench you - whatever you gotta do. But make it real clear to everyone you’re off the Feldspar case. Pick it back up in two orns. Easy enough, right? You’ll still get him in the end.”

“No.” Prowl resets his vocalizer when the word comes out half-choked. “No. He’s - he’s hurting mechs. Every day he’s out of prison, more mechs are getting caught up in his - no. He needs to be _gone_. They need _justice_.”

The hand on his helm twists, sliding around to cup his throat as Meister lets out a sudden growl, and Prowl feels his vents catch as claws cradle his cables, optics whiting with panic - but the assassin doesn’t cut him, just forces his helm up, neck bared. The killer’s voice is closer, as if the other mech is bent over him, and rumbles with threat. 

“And what kind of justice are they gonna get, if the one cop in the city who gives a frag gets his cables cut?” Then just as quickly, the claws are gone, the hand back at his shoulder, and Prowl slumps forwards. His doorwings - his whole frame - are trembling, and he can’t stop it, offlining his optics so he at least doesn’t have to see his knees shake.

“Ain’t gonna hurt you, officer.” The soothing tone is back, gentle again, and the speed of the switch is almost more intimidating than the outright threat. “Two orns, cop. Sixteen cycles, and you’ll crack open his brothels and tear up his slave rings. You’ve got what you need - I just need a little time with him first.”

Prowl hesitates. 

“And you just want me to… publicly… remove myself from the case. Temporarily.” _And I get to live?_ It hangs unstated between them.

“Two orns. That’s it. Then I don’t care what you do - tear the whole thing down. Burn every mech who’s ever giving the slagger a shanix.” He lets out a chuckle. “I’m looking forward to it.”

It’s a deal with a devil, and Prowl _knows_ it. However reasonable Meister sounds, there’s no way that anything the assassin is planning is even remotely acceptable - Prowl should say no, should die before compromising with one of the killers destroying Praxus. But…

He’s tired.

It chafes to admit it, but it’s true. He’s _tired_ of fighting, the gangs, the crimelords, the other officers, the _rot_ at the heart of Praxus - fighting and getting nowhere, earning nothing except knives in the night and the occasional scrap that the lords don’t deem worthy of protection. Every case that he closes leads to a dozen dead ends, more lives lost in the bleak twilight beneath the city, and he’s tired. 

And Meister is right. If he dies here, there will be no one else. His cases will be shut, and Barricade will win, and no one will take up the fight.

“Alright.” He ex-vents in a shudder, the strain of even just that almost too much to bear. “Alright. Two orn. I’ll back-burner the case - I have some vacation time saved up; I’ll let Barricade know I’m taking it now. No one else will push it through while I’m gone - you’ll have the time you want.”

There’s a puff - very faint - of air behind him, and Meister lets out a soft purr. “Good mech. Thank you.” The assassin gives his shoulders one last squeeze, and slips back around him to perch on the second chair. “You’re making the right choice, I promise you. Fer you and them.”

He unsubspaces a cube, glowing blue with energon - the shadows it casts across his plating are almost ethereal, in the darkness. “How do you take it? Bitter?”

It seems like a non sequitur, but Prowl can’t see the harm in answering. “Sour. With magnesium, if you’ve got some.” He pauses, considering the obvious. “I’m not drinking anything you give me.”

Meister glances up at him with just the hint of a smirk. “You will. I’m not tryna hide it, mech - I’m gonna dump enough sedatives in here to knock out a convoy, with how you shook off that batch earlier. Don’t worry, they ain’t gonna do you any harm - you won’t even taste them.” He shakes in a packet of what certainly _looks_ like magnesium salts, frothing slightly as they hit the energon’s surface.

“And why would I drink energon I know is drugged?” Now, with the assassin a little further away, giving him some distance, it’s easier to focus.

“Because there’s only a couple ‘a good ways to stasis a mech without bashing him over the helm, and I assume you’d rather I not hack you?” Meister stirs the cube with a swirl before dumping in another packet, this one clearly marked with a medical supplier’s labeling. “I like this neighborhood. ‘S roomy, and no one comes looking when a mech screams. Never had anyone I brought back here and let live, before, so you’re leaving unconscious one way or another. Not having you follow your pedes back to me, if you catch my drift.”

That’s… not unreasonable, no matter how much he dislikes the idea. “Fine.” He jangles one cuff. “Uncuff me, then.”

Meister gives him a disbelieving look. “No.”

But Prowl doesn’t back down. “I’ve already said I’ll do what you want. I’ll drink the energon - but I’m not having you pour it down my intake. Uncuff me.” He’s got no choice but to trust the assassin - whatever control he can take back over this situation, it will be enough.

Meister regards him warily for a long moment, visor bright. Then, very slowly, he seems to settle - plating that Prowl hadn’t even realized was flared smooths, shoulders relaxing, smirk smoothing out into something closer to a smile.

“Sure, mech.”

Meister gestures, and one of the cuffs at Prowl’s wrists pops open with a click. He lifts it out carefully, keeping the movement slow and deliberate, telegraphing - Meister is close enough to grab, if he wanted, but he has no illusions about how a fight with the assassin would go with his other three limbs bound.

But Meister pauses, seeming to consider something else for a moment before handing over the cube, and when he speaks, it’s Prowl’s turn to chuckle. 

“Just remember, if you toss the cube at me, I’m gonna hack you offline.”

Prowl wraps his fingers around the cube and jogs it, looking up at the assassin, making a show of weighing his options - Meister smirks at that, amused. But it’s just a show, and after a moment, he holds the cube up to his own lips, taking a careful sip.

It’s good - a light, pure solar, sour as chrome, with the faint acridity of a high-magnesium blend. Whatever it’s been drugged with, he can’t taste it.

He takes a moment to entertain the idea that it hasn’t been drugged, that this is all some sort of game, before he takes another sip.

Meister gives a hum of disapproval. “Drink it down, mech. Else it’ll take you out before you’re done with it, and then I _will_ be stuck pouring the rest of it down your intakes.”

With a third sip, he’s sure the assassin is telling the truth - he can feel the blurring in his processor, not nearly as unfamiliar as he would have once hoped, as the poison starts to affect him.

He looks up at Meister one last time - the assassin watches, meeting his optics, steady as a knife - and there is no more chance for hesitation, no turning back.

He drains the cube, and is unconscious before it clatters to the floor from his limp hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow, thank you all so much for the tremendous response to this! I'm glad so many people seem to like it... And especially thanks to the people who reviewed - you've been like my only social contact today in this, our apocalypse, and it really does help :D so here's the second chapter a little earlier than I planned!
> 
> Light on the editing b/c I am bad at re-reading my own shit, so shout shit out in the comments if you see it!


	4. Chapter 4

Lieutenant Prowl onlines with a groan.

He doesn’t bother onlining his optics. He already knows where he is - his own berthroom is familiar enough, the feel of his mattress underneath him unmistakable. The question of how he got there is unnerving, but it’s a question for future-Prowl - he has a job to do.

He checks his chronometer, and curses.

It’s already a joor past shift change, and he’s known for his promptness - noted for it. He checks his inbox, reflexively, but there’s no messages from anyone at the Precinct - no one has bothered to look for him, yet; none of the officers on the morning patrol have stopped by to check in on him. It’s not unexpected - no one wants him there.

Still, he’ll need a cover story for Barricade. Something that excuses his lateness, and gives him an excuse to take two orn off, on no notice -

Prowl rolls sideways out of the berth, tucking his wings neatly out of the way, and boots his ATS as he rises. Setting the problem of explanations to a background process, he strides out into the kitchen, and presses himself a cube.

No point in rushing, if no one has missed him yet.

He kills another joor like that, sitting on his balcony, admiring the new scuffs in the elegant metalwork guardrail. The question of _how_ Meister had managed to get him to a seventh-story balcony above a busy street in broad view of the public, even at night, takes up another thread of processes - and is far more interesting, so he leaves it in general processing as he sips his energon. The paint is indisputably his - white marks, rather than the matte black of the assassins armor - but he takes a sample, more from habit than anything else. It wastes a few kliks, and that’s reason enough.

His cube drained, except for a few grits of magnesium sticking to the bottom, he dumps it in the kitchen and strides out onto the street.

This late in the morning, it’s a hubbub. Not how he usually sees his neighborhood, not at all - usually he’s out before sunrise, when the streets are still clear and dark - but right now, the constant chatter and brush of EM fields is a balm. 

He’s not naive. He’s investigated cases where mechs were pulled off busy streets like this - reach a certain level of notoriety, and no amount of witnesses will save you, not when the police are willing to look the other way. But _most_ attackers won’t go after a mech in a crowd - and that’s comforting, as he works his way to the precinct.

Passing through a row of market stalls, he grabs a shipping box from a vendor, who waves him off with it. He tucks it away in subspace, plan forming as his ATS spits out ideas.

Livewire is leaning against the wall by the doorway of the precinct, and Prowl gives the tall Tarnian officer a respectful nod as he approaches. Livewire gives him a confused look.

“Prowl. Where were ya, mech? Captain was looking for ya at shift change - not like ya to be late. Most o’ the guys figured ya’d be calling in sick eventually.”

Prowl lets his doorwings swing wide, pushing surprise into his field as he gives the other mech a confused look.

“Looking for me?” He drops his wings as he climbs the steps, pausing a respectful distance from his fellow officer, and gives the silver mech a look. “He shouldn’t have been - I have the next two orn off. I was just swinging by to pick up a few personal items…”

Livewire vents at that, looking as confused as Prowl is pretending to be. “Huh. He didn’t seem to think… Ya should go see ‘im. Ya sure yer papers got approved?”

Prowl hesitates visibly before answering, giving a nervous flick of his wings - easy to read, even by a non-Praxian frame. “It wasn’t… well. I’ll go speak to him first. I’m sure he just hasn’t been informed yet - accounting has been after me to use up some paid time for vorns.” With another polite nod, he brushes past the Tarnian.

He can feel Livewire’s optics on his back as he goes, teek the confusion in the other mech’s field, but he doesn’t hesitate. Giving polite greetings to the handful of officers still in the station, he relaxes a little - most of the beat officers are already out on patrol, which means that there aren’t many witnesses to his late arrival. Even so, his doorwings pick up on whispering, and he’s uncomfortably sure that by the time he returns from leave, he’ll be the subject of more than a little gossip.

Still, no one tries to strike up a conversation as he makes his way to Barricade’s office, knocking politely before stepping back from the door. It takes only a moment - a brief shuffling of datapads - before Barricade calls him.

“Come in.”

Barricade looks surprised as he enters, but gestures for him to take a seat before leaning back in his chair to examine him. Prowl controls his wings carefully as he shuts the door behind himself and sits - unlike Livewire, Barricade is a fellow Praxian, and any unintended movement will be picked up on. He ups bandwidth to his ATS, letting the tactical computer burnish the edge off his emotions.

Barricade looks - almost concerned for him. The enforcer Captain is a social mech - even though he wouldn’t bother to _save_ Prowl from a beating, simple empathy is obviously enough to merit some worry when faced with an oddly-acting subordinate.

“Livewire sent me up - he said you had been looking for me, sir?” Prowl leans in slightly, lifting his wings a hair above their neutral set - curious, concerned. 

“You didn’t show up for your beat this morning.” Prowl lifts his wings higher in automatic surprise. “You hadn’t called out - I was wondering where you’d gotten to. Not like you to skip shift, Prowl.”

“My beat?” Prowl cycles his optics, concern flooding his field. “Sir, I was told…” 

He drops his wings, low, far lower than ordinary conversation would call for - fear. Lowers his voice, leans in - something told in confidence. “I was told I would… have the next two orns off.”

Barricade’s own wings rise in surprise at that. “Told by who?” He shuffles for a datapad, onlining it, scrolling. “You don’t have a request in for time off…”

“It… I wasn’t given the impression it was a _request_ , sir. Two mechs showed up on my doorstep last night. We had… words.” A double-flick of his wings, still lowered - a bad memory. “They… informed me that I was on leave, effective today, for two orns, sir. They said that it had been taken care of. It was made clear that taking the time was not… _optional_.”

He hesitates again, for a long moment, this time - the nervous pause of a subordinate unwilling to make the implicit explicit. “I was under the impression that one of our… patrons… had been in touch. Had decided that I had been working too much. Sir.”

Barricade leans back, optics locked on Prowl. The subtext is obvious - it’s not the first time an officer has received a late-night visit and been told to back off, though such tactics have never worked on Prowl before. Prowl lets the memory of those incidents - and the brutal beatings earned by refusal - teek in his field; _he’s afraid, he doesn’t want to be hurt, and someone has threatened him -_

Barricade sees the fear on him, and nods. “I see. Well, I’m sure whoever’s arranged for your time off will be in touch with me - but I’ll approve it. Two orns, they said?” Prowl nods, and Barricade makes a note on the datapad. “You’re all set. But what had you coming by the station at all? I’m surprised I didn’t wind up having to hunt you down, with two orns to kill.”

“Just picking up some things from my desk.” He unsubspaces the box with a pointed flourish, lets his wings lift a little - relief at the change of topic. “I thought I might work on my crystallarium - with all the extra joors I’ve been pulling on the Feldspar case, it’s getting overgrown. And I left a few datapads - Bluestreak has been sending me novels by an Iaconi author he met, I thought I might finally get the chance to go through them.”

Barricade gives him a warm smile, rising from behind the desk. “It sounds like you have your orn planned out, then. Come, I’ll walk you out - I’ve got to check in on a few things, anyways.” He steps out from behind the desk as Prowl rises, leading the way out into the hall.

They pause a few times to greet the other officers - Barricade is much more approachable than Prowl, despite his rank, and everyone seems to have _something_ to say to the older Praxian. But eventually, they reach Prowl’s desk.

Keenly aware of Barricade’s optics on him, Prowl is careful to maintain his cover. The top of the desk is clear - he’s not so careless as to leave investigative information in the open - but he unlocks the top drawer of his desk, where he keeps delicate information. Rather than take anything out, however, he sweeps a few styluses in, then relocks it, carefully maintaining the pretense that he is only collecting a handful of personal possessions - certainly not collecting any of his work. He breaks the crystallarium down next, carefully removing the lamps and setting the cover into place before delicately loading it into the box. 

Next, he opens a side drawer, grabs a can of polish and a rag - ignores the baton sitting next to them, ignores the handful of pistol ammo beneath. He makes a show of organizing them into the box, leaving plenty of room - his real target is beneath.

The rack of datapads looks like nothing else Prowl owns. 

They have the gaudy cases of cheap novels - brightly colored rubber bumpers over contrasting, brightly-colored aluminum. Over a dozen, neatly sorted into the rack, and obviously never touched - examined once, and slotted away. He looks up at Barricade, flicks his wings back self-consciously. 

“I thought I might pass them around, next time we had to pull an all-nighter. Some of the other officers seem like they might enjoy them.” He gives a small smile, barely enough to register, but he knows Barricade will see it - “I suppose I’ll have plenty of time to sort the decent ones out of the dross.”

Barricade chuckles at that. “Let me know if any of them are any good.” He reaches out, picks one up, flicks it on - “Sunset with the Seekers? Never mind. Good luck.” And slots it back with an amused huff.

Prowl scoops the whole rack into his box, subspacing it before straightening. “Apparently Bluestreak is quite taken with the author - a charming older mech with a rather dashing set of sensor horns. He’ll be pleased to hear I’m finally making the attempt, at least.” He gives the older Praxian a nod. “I should let you get back to work. Thank you for being so… accommodating, Captain. I apologize for the inconvenience this is causing you.”

“Oh, we’ll manage.” Barricade grins, and waves him off.

Back out on the city streets, Prowl takes the time to wander. His usual patrol would have him heading west, away from home, but instead he turns south, idling his way aimlessly through street markets and roadside parks before bothering to turn eastward. It’s the lazy gait of a mech in no hurry, one with nowhere to be - even with the station out of sight behind him, there’s no guarantee that Barricade isn’t watching.

Towards midday, he stops by a fuel-cart - chosen at random by the ATS: he has no intention of being poisoned again this orn, although admittedly the odds are low this far from his typical routine. He eats it on the curbside - a terrible idea, ordinarily, no enforcer should ever leave himself this exposed to snipers, except it provides him excellent sightlines on any of the locations a spy might seek to hide. None make themselves apparent, not to visual examination or his doorwings, and so he begins to arc slowly back towards his apartment.

Everything is as he left it - the cube, the chair, the windows; the door to the balcony is still ajar, but accurate exactly to the angle he set it to before leaving. His sensors detect no movement within the rooms, and he checks them all thoroughly; his motion-sensors have no record of movement while he was gone, and the ones placed obviously in the hallway have not been tampered.

He has no cameras in his suite; cameras can be hacked. The events of his last cycle are enough to make him debate reevaluating that, however - Prowl feeds the thought into his ATS as he checks his berthroom for bugs, and lets it idle in his background processes as he begins scanning the walls for wires.

It takes almost two joor to satisfy himself that his apartment is secure. He locks the balcony, presses another cube, and shuts the door to his berthroom before unsubspacing the box.

He sets up the crystallarium first. It’s a beautiful piece - a gift for graduating the Academy - and he takes his time with it. He had been honest when he said it was getting overgrown, and Prowl tosses that, too, to his ATS, feeding it a handful of information about crystal husbandry and setting it to generate iterative interpretations of how he might go about pruning it.

With that, too, running in background, he picks up the datapad rack.

The pads _are_ gaudy. Ugly, even - they clash with his berthroom like nothing else, a bright splash of color against clean lines and monochrome walls. He lifts the first in line out of the rack and flicks it on with a gesture: _The Gladiator’s Greataxe._ Cheap romance trash.

He taps in a code - both G’s, all four A’s, the lone S - and the screen flickers in a reset, filling with line after line of datawork.

Prowl takes a moment to smirk before setting the pad aside, sipping his energon.

He’ll do what Meister requested, of course. Stepping back, publicly, from the case for two orns - he had hardly had to lie to get it approved, though he’s not prepared to reveal to Barricade _who_ had asked him to step back. But Meister had said - had _claimed_ \- that Prowl would be free to finish with Feldspar when he got back - and Prowl has no intention of sitting idle, not with such a clear invitation. With two orns of no patrols, no distractions, no coworkers trying to vie for his attention, and all of his casenotes…

Feldspar won’t just go down. Prowl flicks his wings at the thought, at the curl of satisfaction - he will _tear him apart_ , him and his empire, until _nothing_ can rise from the ashes.

He flicks the datapad back on, and starts to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Two chapters in one day? Well, you've all been lovely commenters, so... you deserve it, I guess! Keep it up! 
> 
> And just like that, the first act closes! Like I said, there's a lot more in this universe - I'm just trying to divide it up so it doesn't become an unmanageable 80k beast, since it's going to be pretty episodic. So try not to resent me too much if this feels like an unsatisfying conclusion - it's not, we're just setting the stage!
> 
> That said, I'd love to hear what you think about it! This might undergo minor editing as I get time - I banged this chapter out today, since it's one of the handful I didn't have written yet, and so it's not edited. Although TBH I rarely edit anything I'm posting for myself - I used to do editing on commission, but I don't really enjoy looking at my own work like that, so eh, y'all gets the grammar ya gets.
> 
> Also, if anyone wants to rustle me up a better title for this, go for it - I couldn't think of anything, but "The Hitman"'s pretty bland. So is Crime and Crystal, but, eh. W/e, right?


End file.
